Friday, August 14, 2015

Paperbacking the Classics

We all know that sex sells, just as we also know that most people will almost always judge a book by its cover! So what would happen if one of the trashier publishing houses of the 50's decided to repackage the classics with sexy new cover art and provocative, arousing tag lines? Let cartoonist, legend, Ed Fisher show you the way with this handful of hilarious covers he originally reworked in 1954 for The Saturday Review.

Sure, we've had plenty of Naughty Alice versions since 1954, but something that made me smile ... is the connection between Colossal Ahab and Moby "Dick"...Oh, and read well the lines written for "Meeting of East and West". Wise, wise cover. It beats killing each other, definitely.

If anybody remembers the non-Marilyn parts of "The Seven Year Itch", Tom Ewell oversees a reprint of "Little Women" as "Secrets of a Girls' Dormitory" and explains to an outraged author why his serious book on male psychology has been retitled "The Seven Year Itch."

MAD Magazine was more intent on movies, showing how innocent, dull flicks could be semi-honestly peddled as lurid exploitation. One piece followed a hypothetical romantic epic from ads for its classy first-run engagements to its lurid grindhouse finish. Another pitched Disney's "Snow White" with the line "She needed SEVEN men!"

Still goes on, especially in cheap DVD cover art. How many editions of the grim and unsexy war story "Two Women" placed a low-cut glamour shot of Sophia Loren on the cover? How many cartoon collections headlined Woody Woodpecker or Donald Duck on the basis of the single title of each that had gone PD? When Columbia released its outrageously silly Batman serials from the 1940s, they put a sleek and modern Dark Knight-type illustration on the cover.

About Me

(aka Steve Banes) Editor / co-editor of IDW's Chilling Archives of Horror Comic Books: ZOMBIES, RETURN OF THE ZOMBIES, DEVIL TALES, and MUMMIES, as well as co-host of the bi-monthly HAUNTED HORROR comic series and HAUNTED LOVE miniseries. (All image scans and photography by me from items found in my own personal collection-- except where noted.)